Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!haven!umbc3!mbph!hybl From: hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl Dept of Biophysics SM) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Two Fortran Standards Summary: portability vs vendor extensions and the Brooks Report Message-ID: <611@mbph.UUCP> Date: 16 Sep 89 12:10:58 GMT References: : <1073@cernvax.UUCP> Organization: University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201 Lines: 47 In-reply-to: dated 13 Sep 89 19:11:13 GMT >Dr. Hybl seems to have badly misunderstood my posting, so I'd like to >clarify several things. ... The customer is bidding based on his >assumption that the Government cares about cost, ... >Most of the exceptions granted by DoD that I know about are based >on the existence of something "close" to what the contract calls for. That sounds like the usual argument employed for awarding sole source contracts. Sole source contracts are often expensive and prone to hanky-panky. >The Government still does an awful lot of work in FORTRAN; ... ?^^^^^? Congress, always being interested in the cost of toilet seats and computer equipment (Automatic Data Processing Resources), identified that one cause of sole source acquisition was the existence of extensions in the various compilers. In House Report No. 94-1746 titled "Administration of Public Law 89-306, Procurement of ADP Resources by the Federal Government," we read: "This means that a user agency may adopt Cobol but employ unique features which will impede conversion." That was written in 1976. You can replace the word Cobol with Fortran, features with extensions and conversion with portage and notice that nothing has changed over the last thirteen years. The Brooks committee added: "Only when standard high level languages are developed and their use enforced will a barrier to effective competition be eliminated." They intended that the high level languages should be without extensions! >Finally, I'd like to point out (again) that portability is a relative >concept. Yes, it's extremely useful for users but a real-time pain for the vendors. Bill, a panegyrists for F77, refers to it in the singular as if there weren't thousands of disparate implementations. Hasn't he noticed that the VAX/VMS compiler already contains many of the F8x features? Although I don't think much of the barnacles attached to VMS, I don't see VAX being stoned for adding the F8x features. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Albert Hybl, PhD. Office UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl Department of Biophysics Home UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl!ah University of Maryland CoSy: ahybl School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21201 Phone: (301) 328-7940 (Office) ----------------------------------------------------------------------